Starting today Disney content will go live on Hulu, consumating a deal that was struck earlier this year to join the two-year venture with NBC Universal, News Corp and Providence Equity Partners.

The first few shows include popular fare from ABC such as Grey’s Anatomy,  Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty. This means Hulu is going from strength to strength in locking down its leadership as the place for watching TV on the Web.

Part of the attraction of Hulu is that it is free for U.S. residents, since most of the content can be watched for free over the air in the U.S. But we wouldn’t be surprised if Hulu’s owners added a paid service as part of the TV Everywhere initiative players like Time Warner have been promoting. Such a ‘paid-for’ service would actually be free if the customer is already a paying cable/satellite TV subscriber.

Hulu is also making strides to launch in the UK soon.

In the meantime, if you’re stuck at your desk tomorrow at 9.30am PST (12.30pm EST) you can watch the Michael Jackson service live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  The broadcast is being provided to Hulu by half-sister network Fox News. After the live-stream, Hulu will also offer on-demand access of the entire memorial service.

Here’s an entry from our very own Reuters New York equities team summer intern Chavon Sutton. (Thanks, Chavon!)

Did Vibe magazine, the print ambassador of hip-hop culture, voice and style, pass up a chance to survive last year?

Vibe, the baby of acclaimed producer Quincy Jones (the composer who produced the late Michael Jackson’s mega-hit albums, “Thriller” and “Off the Wall,”), said earlier this week that it was shutting down immediately.

A partnership with an online gossip website serving African-American readers, might have given it room to keep producing, according to the site’s founder and editor.

Fred Mwangaguhunga, who runs Mediatakeout.com, told us that in the year before Vibe’s collapse, it offered the magazine a revenue-share deal, but Vibe refused.

“We came to Vibe and offered it a deal where they’d sell our ads and in return, they’d get a stake in the ads they sold,” Mwangagunhunga said.

The partnership could have given Vibe “$1 million a month, but they didn’t want it,” he said.
$1 million a month? Hard to say. (For what it’s worth, Mwangaguhunga says Mediatakeout.com gets 3 to 5 million unique viewers and 150 million page impressions per month.)

We tried to reach Vibe, or whatever is left of it, but a computerized voicemail message at the magazine’s office said: “Message quota exceeded. Goodbye.”

Did Vibe take a wise pass in the hopes of striking a better online deal? Or do its actions suggest that it is another example of entrenched print types avoiding imminent change?

It could be a pointless question. Jones told EbonyJet.com that he plans to buy back the magazine, which had a circulation of over 800,000, according to The New York Times.

Incidentally, Ebony apparently isn’t interested in working with Mediatakeout either.

“We made the same proposal to Ebony [magazine] which is facing pressure now,” he said.  “I’m not sure why they’re saying no.”

(Photo: Reuters)

Time Warner-owned celebrity news website TMZ may have been first in reporting the death of Michael Jackson, but is all the buzz around the site going to turn into cash?

It’s a question the LA Times asks in this article, pointing out that the Jackson scoop — the biggest in TMZ’s history — comes at a time when the TMZ’s tactics and “tabloid sensibilities” have angered publicists and government officials, made other journalists reluctant to cite TMZ, and even caused advertisers to shy away from putting their messages on the site.

In a piece last Friday, The New York Times’ Brian Stelter pointed out that even though TMZ looks good because it beat all rivals with the Jackson news, the “Jackson family said the time of death was 5:26 p.m. Eastern, several minutes after TMZ’s report, leading some to wonder whether the Web site looked accurate only in hindsight.”

TMZ editor-in-chief Harvey Levin told the Times their report was 100 percent accurate. He also said the site pays “tip fees” that lead to stories, but did not say whether they paid any sources for the Jackson news.

As the LA Times story by Scott Collins and Meg James says, one of the reasons why the site makes people — especially other reporters — uncomfortable is “a sense that TMZ is flouting not so much the law as journalistic ethics. Rivals have consistently accused Levin and company of paying for information.”

So despite the site’s record of getting big celebrity news and the claims that TMZ’s scoop represents the triumph of new media over old, it’s not immediately clear that Time Warner will begin to make a ton of money off this asset. TMZ is a joint venture between AOL and Telepictures.

Keep an eye on:

• Microsoft wants to sell Razorfish. Who wants to buy? (Financial Times)
• Advertising on mobile networks will take off in the next 2-3 years (Reuters)
• Google says, we aren’t so big, really. (The New York Times)

Photo: Reuters

As the world mourned his death, Michael Jackson gave new life to all kinds of media - online, broadcast, print tabloids and broadsheets as the public appeared to lap up the extravagant reflections on the singer’s highs and lows.

T-shirts were sold and TV specials were planned giving a sense of drama reminiscent to the death of Diana Princess of Wales.

In newspapers like the New York Times, Jackson, 50, took over much of the Friday front page. Forget the political uproar in Iran, which has dominated headlines in recent days or the adulturous governor of South Carolina, or even the demise of Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett.

This makes sense since, as Gawker points out, millions of people who normally wouldn’t buy a newspaper will buy one today to get hold of Jackson headlines.

As the news trickled out on Thursday afternoon, fans scrambled to find out the truth.

“Pop King Dies and Leading News Sites Nearly Die Too,” was the subject in an email from Web traffic watcher Keynote Systems that described the strain Jackson put on news sites.

Within hours, Michael Jackson’s music sales shot up and he occupied the top 15 slots on Amazon.com’s best-seller album list including Thriller, his most famous album.

On Friday, blogs were buzzing about the mystery around the controversial megastar’s sudden death and websites displayed photo montages showing it all - the signature moonwalk dance and his infamous dangling of his baby son over a balcony and everything in between. Others debated the merits of learning the news on microblogging site Twitter.

But amid all the excitement, businessinsider.com had to put a damper on things by suggesting that we could bankrupt the government by wasting all our time on the Web rather than engaging in taxable activities.

Keep an Eye On:

• Apple ups stake in Imagination Tech (Reuters)
• Wired Editor Admits to Palgiarizin Wikipedia (Associated Press)

It’s Day 2 of YouTube versus PRS For Music, the British organization that collects royalties for songwriters and publishers whenever songs are broadcast over the air and the Web or performed in public venues .

As you may know by now, YouTube started blocking UK visitors from watching professional music videos and users’ videos that feature licensed music. The reason, as usual, is each side said the other guys are being unreasonable in their fee negotiations. YouTube says PRS wants many times more than a previous deal, while PRS says YouTube actually wants to pay less than they currently pay.

There was some signs of progress today when PRS put out a statement:

Talks between PRS for Music and Google took place today to discuss the licensing of YouTube following Google’s sudden decision to block premium video content on the service in the UK.

The meeting was positive. We are committed to ensuring our 60,000 songwriter and composers members receive a fair deal and that UK consumers continue to enjoy music videos on YouTube.

PRS said both sides are due to meet again in the next few days.

And like in the US and every other country on the planet, Brits will miss their YouTube music, so much so that the UK’s Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting Lord Carter commented on the row to a House of Commons business committee, according to the BBC.

The headline of the same BBC story might lead readers to think online radio service Last.fm was also about to fall out with the PRS: “Last.FM joins Google’s rights row”. But the story in fact quotes Last.fm founder Martin Stiksel saying while his company has an agreement with PRS, the licenses are getting expensive:

It is a fundamental problem that we have been facing in that online music licensing is getting more complicated and more expensive.

(Photo: Michael Jackson’s Thriller performance by prison inmates in the Philippines, which was made popular on YouTube/REUTERS)

YouTube, which has nailed the science of online video sharing, is now getting into online shopping by partnering with the likes of Amazon.com and iTunes.

The shop links will be just below the YouTube clips and will eventually sell a wide variety of items and merchandise related to the millions of clips on the site including: MP3s, TV shows, movies, concert tickets, books, maybe, even buy the designer sunglasses your favorite star is wearing in a clip. 

So soon you’ll be able to buy the Michael Jackson song playing in the background while watching the hilarious clip of Filipino prisoners doing their reenactment of the ’Thriller’ video. 

How will YouTube know if it’s a Michael Jackson song? Executives told Reuters they have a pretty nifty video and audio ID system that helps identify songs and video clips. If the song publisher or movie producer wants they can jointly share in the revenue from the advertising generated around such content.

Keep an eye on:

• Troubled New Jersey newspaper The Star-Ledger will not be sold after one of its unions agreed to concessions (Reuters)
• John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono and EMI Records have dropped copyright infringement lawsuits against documentary makers for using ‘Imagine’ (Reuters)
•  Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown has teamed up with media mogul Barry Diller’s IAC to launch a new glossy mag-style website called The Daily Beast (New York Times)

(Photo: Reuters)